Armed with extensive research that cuts through popular myths about child poverty, Madrick roots his provocative arguments in searing facts that should make every American ashamed—and determined to act on his sensible solutions.

With a walk through the history and research on child poverty in the United States, Madrick systematically builds the case for why we need to move expeditiously to a universal monthly child allowance for children and in so doing, dramatically reduce child poverty. Madrick offers both a comprehensive view of the history of child poverty in our nation and a glimpse of where we may be headed.

Masterfully weaving together stories and statistics, Jeffrey Madrick shines a light on the deepness and vastness of child poverty in America, and offers us a surprisingly simple way to address it.

Child poverty is one of the many areas of social welfare where the United States badly lags other wealthy countries. Madrick gives an excellent account of the contours and consequences of child poverty in the United States, as well as the failed social policies of the last three decades that have done little to address this problem. He also makes a powerful argument for the simplest possible solution, giving poor families money.

In Invisible Americans, Jeff Madrick shines invaluable light on a much-neglected crisis: the more than one in five children -- some 13 million children -- who live in poverty in the world’s wealthiest nation. Madrick explains how this crisis has stunted millions of children and shows how the United States has fallen woefully short of its promise of equal opportunity. Madrick makes devastatingly clear that America’s child poverty problem is a moral disgrace. Concise, compelling, and urgent, Invisible Americans concludes with some smart ideas on how to quickly reduce child poverty.